From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Three Day Road

Joseph Boyden

Start date: July 15, 2009

Finish date: July 15, 2009

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Rosana

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Feb 11, 2008 Malcolm rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Book Review: Three Day Road
Joseph Boyden
Viking Canada Penguin 2005
ISBN 0-670-06362-2
Once in a long while one reads a book that you cannot put down and the overall beauty of it leaves one gasping. Three Day Road, is such a book. It tells the story of Two Cree young men who find themselves in WW I fighting in the trenches of France as snipers using their hunting and shooting skills they learned in the bush growing up near James Bay.

The story begins with the protagonist, Xavier Bird, has retur Book Review: Three Day Road
Joseph Boyden
Viking Canada Penguin 2005
ISBN 0-670-06362-2
Once in a long while one reads a book that you cannot put down and the overall beauty of it leaves one gasping. Three Day Road, is such a book. It tells the story of Two Cree young men who find themselves in WW I fighting in the trenches of France as snipers using their hunting and shooting skills they learned in the bush growing up near James Bay.

The story begins with the protagonist, Xavier Bird, has returned from the war minus his leg and addicted to morphine. Aunt Niska, Xavier’s only living relative has paddled five days against the river current to bring him home. Niska is a Cree woman who has lived in traditional ways alone in the bush much of her life except for a brief stay in a residential school as a child. The story takes place during their three day return to James Bay. Flashbacks to the battlefields of France, vividly told, and to each of their childhoods occur during times when Xavier is asleep, or drugged by the morphine that controls the phantom pain in his leg. We learn Xavier is on borrowed time as his morphine cache is nearly gone. The title Three Day Road has a truly layered meaning in the story.

We learn a lot about the traditional native way of life as well as the isolation natives must endure in the world of the wemistikoshiw (the Cree word for white man).
We gain a certain insight into a residential school where Cree children are taken from their homes and fat Nuns abuse little boys and punish them severely if they speak in native tongues.

The historically accurate description of life in the trenches in France is excellent – on par with the likes of Pierre Berton’s Vimy.

Boyden’s descriptive and narrative skill is terrific and a lot is included in the books 350 pages. The book is a Writers Trust Award winner and one can easily see why.

I give it five stars (but would give six if I could)

Malcolm Watts BA MSW
Novelist Reflections from Shadow
www.authorsden.com/malcolmwatts
...more

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Jan 06, 2008 Rosana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, re-reads, canadian, book-club, 2009

I love this book. It is definitely in the pack of books I would carry with me from a burning building. I read it 2 years ago or so, and recently browsed through it again for a book club discussion. I feel surprised with myself that a book with so many graphic descriptions of battles and death does not however make me put it on the list of books never to reread. For all the sadness and destruction it describes, still it does not leave me downhearted. I guess I see the characters' struggles as an ...more

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May 12, 2009 Laura rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bookmooch, hf-world-war-i, read-2012, historical-fiction, canadian-literature

Just arrived from UK through BM.

The idea behind the book is great but the obsessive Xavier's compulsion by the use of morphine in almost every paragraph made me boring in some way, sorry guys. ...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Loretta rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: indigenous-reading

I read Boyden's two novels in the wrong order - I read his second novel, Through Black Sprucefirst, and absolutely LOVED it. I immediately turned to Three Day Road - and although I enjoyed it, I think it suffered a little from the comparison to Through Black Spruce.

That said, Three Day Road is still a wonderful read about the devastation wrought by war, the beauty of friendship and family. I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone very highly. Boyden is working on a third novel about th ...more

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Apr 30, 2010 Mary Ellen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: wwi-related

A powerful book, haunting me months after I finished it. A Cree grandmother meets her grandson, returning from WWI, at the train depot, and journeys with him by canoe to the home where they follow the traditional Cree life. The grandson's tortured memories of his service as a sniper in a 2-man team with a boyhood friend alternate with the grandmother's stories of his childhood and the history of his family and his people as they make a three-day journey that will lead to either death or life. ...more

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Feb 06, 2008 Miriam rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

I wish I could give 3.5 stars in goodreads, because that's a more accurate representation of my rating. I almost loved this book, but not quite. Not entirely the book's fault - I read it over 3 weeks in little bits; but it took some serious persistence to read past the first 150 pages mainly because I was impatient with the over-arching metaphor. I found the first third awkward and a bit heavy handed, the last 2/3rds were much better, and the last 1/3 excellent. ...more

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